Menu

Statistics: Smoking Status Among Malaysian Adults

In 2015, about 22.8% of Malaysian adults (aged >15) were smokers. (That’s more than 1 in every 5 adults!)

In 2011, 23.1% of Malaysian adults smoked, so yes, it had reduced slightly.

43% of men and 1.4% of women smoked.

The prevalence among female smokers has increased from 1.0% in 2011 to 1.4% in 2015.

Among the smokers, a third (34.9%) smoked 25 or more cigarettes, 24.2% smoked 14-24 cigarettes, 18.5% smoked 10-14 cigarettes, 16.4% smoked 5-9 cigarettes and 5.9 smoked less than 5 cigarettes a day.

Among the three main races, the Malays had the highest prevalence at 24.6%, followed by the Indians at 19.7% and the Chinese at 15.4%.

Overall, 37.1% of Malaysian adults were exposed to secondhand smoke at home (not including children yet!)

More than half (52.3%) of adult smokers had tried to quit smoking in the past 12 months.

Smokeless cigarettes used has increased from 0.7% in 2011 to 10.9% in 2015.

(Worldwide) Tobacco use, a major preventable cause of premature death and diseases, kills 6 million people worldwide annually, 10% of these deaths were among non-smokers who were exposed to the second-hand cigarette smoke.

Unless otherwise stated, all these data were reported in 2015, retrieved from National Health & Morbidity Survey 2015.